Today there is a great article on TechCrunch covering the German Web 2.0 scene (by Gregor Hochmuth). You can learn a lot about why Web 2.0 took a bit longer to take off there (technical limitations, language etc.) and what German start-ups in that area look like. The key tune of the article is that there are many companies around who are copying other (US) ideas - and that really original ideas are rare.
As you can see in the comments there already, there are some copycats looking / working better than the "original". I for example like Xing also better than LinkedIn (I'm on both).
The problem remains that Germany just does not have the same entrepreneurial spirit and money as let's say Silicon Valley. That becomes obvious to everyone who ever has spent some time on the West Coast (like I did last November).
There also is a nice overview about Original vs. Copy which I pasted in here from Gregor's article:
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